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Guild Wars 2 AMA @ Reddit

Your Questions answered here.

Official link from which this post is compiled:  http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/nclu0/im_a_guild_wars_2_developer_ama_about_professions/

Here we go:

Q&A Starts Here

This is also submitted on GW2Guru at THIS link I will keep both of these updated and you can choose between which ones you would like to view.

Question #1: "Any information for closed beta release? And.. When will mesmer come to guildwars2.com in proffesions"

Answer: "We will officially enter Closed Beta Testing this Friday. It will be marked with an increase in our pool of testers. To clarify, this phase of testing is still under NDA and is not open to the public.

Based on the feedback we get from our current Closed Beta Testing, we will determine the next phases of our beta program in which we will open beta access to more people."

Question #2: "At any point in development did you ever personally come up with a feature that was great on paper but didn't work so well in practice? If so what was it?"

Answer: "Sure! Our first version of Death Shroud actually involved the Necromancer needing to capture souls in order to use weapon skills, with skills costing different amounts of souls. It didn't work very well because it meant the Necromancer had a lot of useless skills on their bar until they killed things. We like the new one much better. "

Question #3: "Hi, will you be able to finish any Instance with -lets say- 5 rangers with shortbow/dagger set. So will you really have a free choice in terms of professions?"

Answer: "I will. As far as anyone else, it depends on if they are any good at playing ranger.

....

Seriously though it is our goal is that how you play your profession and skills are more important than what you bring. "

Question #4: "In WvW what is the maximum number of players allowed on one given map? Or what is the most people you've seen in a WvW at the office?"

Answer: "At least 500."

Question #5: "Is that an answer to the former or the latter? Best to clarify now cause if you meant the latter and people assume the former well then people will run with "ONLY 2,000 PEOPLE ALLOWED IN WvWvW!" and I'm sure you know how that is."

Answer: "So what game allows PvP that is bigger than this?"

This part goes on for a bit, they all mention Eve Online and someone said Lineage 2. Someone else mentioned Dark Age of Camelot and eventually it lead to ArenaNetTeam saying the following line, "and I am hoping that we can live up to it and MORE! I played DaoC from release and had a level 50 Eldritch roaming the frontiers very early on. I remember the first time I ran into the Midgard giant, and proptly turned and ran as quickly as a could." He continued to respond to this question and expand upon it and if you would like to see the rest you can view it at THIS Link.

Question #6: "The thief class seems like the only class which can't fulfill all the three roles (damage, support, control), especially the control and support part. How are you going to put it on par with other classes?"

Answer: "The thief can absolutely do all 3 roles. I know it can do damage, I know it has good control, and I know Izzy has a great support thief that he runs right now in PvP tests."

Question #7: "Now that all the professions are out, which one do you think you'll be playing the most of?"

Answer: "Warrior. :)"

Question #8: "Are you worried that people of a high skill level will be able to detect which illusions are fakes and focus down the mesmer more quickly than they can other professions? Given that they have the lightest armor and lack a pure survival mechanic (like attunements and death shroud), how do you feel about their PvP survivability? While I recognize that Mesmers have a high skill ceiling, that also could be mitigated by certain cues as to what they are doing. Also, what is your favorite profession in PvP thus far?"

Answer: "I don't think they are supposed to be so deceptive so much as a temporary distraction. They die in about one hit so even AoE attacks tend to melt them pretty quickly. The more interesting decision is how to build up sets of them to shatter in interesting ways.

Favorite PvP profession: Warrior."

Question #9: "Very cool, thanks for the answer! I'm actually personally glad that they don't "rely" on the deception; it is often too difficult to make a convincing deception with AI as we can see in League of Legends. Sub-question regarding the shatters; can you have all 4 "pre-cast" before a fight, or can you only have one charged up at a time?"

Answer: "They are all just normal skills like anything else. You use F1-F4 to activate them, and they are instant skills that can be used in the middle of another cast."

Question #10: "Greetings Jon, thanks for taking the questions. A lot of fans have been worried about the thief profession, feeling that it will not have all the tools that others have access to. Is there any new things that have changed since the last demo; specifically, if you can, what are some of the effects of stolen items that we haven't heard about yet?"

Answer: "Blog coming next Tuesday on thief improvements. I can promise you they are not bad in PvE or PvP."

Question #11: "Is the confusion condition going to last long and do small amount of damage, or be applied for short time and do big enough damage to actually shut down the enemy?"

Answer: "As of right now, it can actually stack. This means that it does a small amount of damage with one application, but with many applications, it will definitely make someone think twice about attacking!"

Question #12: "What is your #1 favorite thing about GW2?"

Answer: "Dynamic events. It will be nice to finally play an MMO with content that makes sense for the genre."

Question #13: "How's the work environment at ArenaNet? Do you guys get stressed from the pressures of the community / their demands? I feel like working on a game would be bitter sweet because there are so many people that want to be pleased by GW2. "

Answer: "It is a double edged sword for sure. Once you work on a game its not as exciting to play games because you start to nit pick everything in them. Oh wait, that is what fans do anyway. It is a really great place to work and I look forward to my Mondays as much as my Fridays."

Question #14: "In the demo featured at G Star we a revised skill placement for the Thief's dagger. Would you mind sharing with us:
The reason Backstab was changed to only being available in stealth
If the other Thief main hand weapons revived skills available to them only in stealth as well
The name of the new slot #2 Dagger ability that replaced the Thief's Backstab"


Answer: "There is another blog post coming with some information about changes to Thief (even newer than stuff in the G Star build) coming next Tuesday. Also...Heartseeker"

Question #15: "I noticed the Mesmer had a few melee weapons in the skill videos but didn't really hit anything with them in melee range. Do mesmers have up close and personal attacks as well?"

Answer: "Yes."

Question #16: "Is the mesmer's portal skill group based or only the mesmer can use it?"

Answer: "Allies, but players only. For now."

He expanded on this after another user asked him a similar question, "Wait, does that include minions and/or pets for necro/ranger respectively? Because that would be tragic if you accidentally stranded them by going through a portal." his response to this question was "Yeah, it might also allow companions. Hey, it's not quite ready yet :P."

Question #17: "Has anything been changed with the Elementalist's cooldowns across attunements since Gamescom? It seemed like the Elementalist PvPing was able to annihilate everyone and get away as they wished, was that just a result of the player's skill, and intended, or did it need a bit of balancing?

Thanks for the AMA."

Answer: "Some of this was skill on the player's part, part of this is just balance. Cooldowns, just like everything else in the game, are still in a place of flux until everything is balanced. "

Question #18: "Will the Necromancer have skills that inflict the new confused condition ? If yes, can you give an example of such skill?"

Answer: "Yes, Warhorn - Wail of Doom (skill #4)"

Question #19: "Will you be supporting the E-Sport side of Guild Wars 2 through officially ran tournaments with cash prizes, likewise to the original game?"

Answer: "Yes, we want to support the game as an E-Sport, but we're not talking about the details just yet."

I'm adding the other questions + Answers into the comments below.


Question #20: "Does gear affect your stats?"

Answer: "yes they do, all most all gear you find will have stats. "

Question #21: "Whirlwind for Ele seemed overpowered as it lasted a long time when I played the game at PAX. Is that how it is supposed to be?"

Answer: "You mean Tornado? Whats the point of turning into a Tornado if you don't feel overpowered. " and "Balance is an ongoing thing, so we're always tweaking things that we feel are too weak or too strong."

Question #22: "In PvP, how does a Mesmer prevent it from being obvious which clone is real? For example, do the clones follow the exact actions of the Mesmer to the split second? Or do the clones sorta do their own thing independent of the Mesmer, leaving it somewhat obvious who the real Mesmer is? Additionally, can aoe spells easily and quickly dispatch a Mesmer’s clones?"

Answer: "Once you learn your illusions and how they work, you start to realize what they look like to your opponents. Then you can start behaving like illusions to really throw your opponents off!"

Question #23: "Can you tell us what are your plans for PvE Endgame? More 5 mans dungeons only, Raids with 10 or more people, more Areas with Dynamics events like The Shatterer, a mix of those?"

Answer: "Endgame is such a dirty word. We want our game to be the endgame. We don't like the idea of a game that changes when you hit max level. As you level up you can play events, dungeons, WvW, or at anytime take a break and do some competitive PvP, and then hit a button and go back to PvE stuff."

Question #24: "Why no interrupts? Where's the Diversion (out of place, maybe, but still), the real Cry of Frustration, Psychic Instability, etc. I'm so sad now. I WANT D-SHOT!

Loved Guild Wars, can't wait for Guild Wars 2. Consider Interrupts!"

Answer: "Here are the ways to interrupt: Stun, Knockdown, Launch, Knockback, Daze. Interrupts as just interrupts were just a wierd mechanic that were hard to explain. In fact the shatter F3 that stuns is called Diversion."

A follow-up question was asked: "Still wouldn't it be nice to have skills with the same mechanic as the old diversion / power block / blackout / arcane thievery / d-shot / d-chop (...) What do you think ?". The response to this question was "Those mechanics just don't make as much sense in the new system. Basically, the nice thing about a daze is that a bad player using it still gets the blackout portion of it, but a great player can get the interrupt out of it as well."

Question #25: "So why the need for a difference between clones and phantasms? Couldn't one fulfill the needs of both? Or am I misunderstanding their nature?"

Answer: "Clones are really just deception. They are there to utilize the shatters and create temporary dps and distraction. Phantasms are more like "in world" hexes. There is a Phantasm called Backfire that does a powerful attack to foes casting skills."

Question #26: "On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the highest), how likely is a closed/open beta in January."

Answer: "10 - For closed beta."

Question #27: "How will the steal mechanic look like in the future?"

Answer: "We have a blog coming Tuesday which will shed some light on this!"

Question #28: "Game design student! Questions HO!
How many iterations have these professions gone through already?
Did you guys have these professions in mind from the beginning?
How much of an effect does weapon choice have on gameplay?"


Answer: " * It depends on the profession. We just got out of the 10th or so meeting on Elementalist skills yesterday. Guardian had A LOT of iteration, whereas mesmer and thief actually have had a lot less.
We had 12 professions in mind at the start. We ended up with these 8 because they fulfilled the archetypes in the best ways while keeping some of the GW1 feel and still making it feel like a new game. GW2!!!
Weapon choice is almost as important as profession choice. A Hammer warrior is a CC nightmare, but a Longbow warrior is an AoE damage machine. Of course its also valid to play a warrior with neither of these weapons."


Question #29: "Fans had predicted that the final class would be the Minstrel, what influenced your decision in opting to go with Mesmer instead?"

Answer: "Have you heard the minstrel singing? Obviously Billy Ocean was unavailable so we went with what you have heard. It seemed like it would get old pretty quickly."

Question #30: "What is the most fun profession ,in your opinion, to play"

Answer: "Warrior. :) - Jon", "Necro or Mesmer. (--) (That's a ninja face) - Chap"


Question #31: "How far apart can the portals in the portal skill be set? and can allies use them?"

Answer: "Radar range, which is 2500 units, so 208.333 ft., so 63 meters if you use a sensible system like the metric system. :)"

Question #32: "How long does the Mesmer's Veil skill last? Seems like it could be overpowered in PVP"

Answer: "It is permanent...Seriously it is a number and that number will be balanced in PvP. I think somewhere between 0 and 1000 seconds."

Question #33: "It seems like there is a base of people who are disappointed by the Mesmer profession (I am definitely not one of them), because their mains were Ritualists and they feel they have no profession that represents that well. What GW2 profession do you feel will cater to that subset of players?"

Answer: "In the way that Ritualists were indirect suppport in GW1, many classes in GW2 can support their allies as the Ritualist did. Rangers can bring nature spirits, Necromancers can bring minions, Elementalists can bring familiars, Mesmers have their illusions, etc. etc. All classes can bring buffs, boons, etc."

Posted by Stéphane Lo Presti A minor correction on this answer: there's no "familiar" In Guild Wars 2. Sorry about the confusion!

Question #Numberless! "The "Thief" severely lacks 1 of the 3 pillars of combat (Support skills) from what we've seen so far, while other professions seem to be be very proficient with each pillar. Is this going to change, and if not, what was the reasoning on making the Thief more 2 dimensional? "

Answer: "Tell that to Izzy's support thief so he stops playing it!!!"

Question #34: "Will PvP players still need to "reroll" to a different profession, or will that process be easier in gw2?"

Answer: "You will need to make a new character to play a new profession. However, you will have access to everything once that character gets to PvP, so you won't need to "grind up" the new character."

Question #35: "I'm just trying to grasp the clone parts of the Mesmers. In PVP will other people see them as exact copy of you, or their ghostly forms like we saw in the videos?"

Answer: "If it's a clone, they will see something that looks like you. If it's a phantasm, they will see an illusion with a purple color to it."

Question #36: "One of my coworkers was a long-time EVE player, and I've been trying to convince him to join us in GW2 when it comes out. He seems interested, but his biggest question has been whether or not there will be any sort of world PvP.

One of his favorite things about EVE (and one of my favorite things about WoW) is always having to watch your step when you're questing/farming in dangerous territory. He loves the idea of being able to kill and be killed anywhere you go, beyond the boundaries of safe territory. I've tried to convince him that WvWvW and organized PvP are both huge elements in GW2, but he still would like to see world PvP enabled on some servers. Any idea if that's a possibility we can look forward to?"

Answer: "No OPEN PvP in PvE, it doesnt make sense with how events work. However I think people who like Open Gank PvP (like myself) will REALLY love WvW."

Question #37: "Thanks for doing this AMA. I have a question about pvp. In the usual unorganized pvp environment, either in a mmo battleground or in many fps's, people tend group up and zerg points. This can lead to very monotonous gameplay. How does this strategy or lack thereof fit into GW2? Are there specific counters for it?"

Answer: "We use our secondary objectives to discourage this type of game play. By using things like a treb that deals massive damage to everyone in the area you can really punish people for grouping up. "

Question #38: "So lets say I play an Elementalist and I throw down a firewall and then want to switch to water attunement to heal some of my buddies, would I experience a kind of global cooldown from when I throw the firewall before and can switch to water attunement and then heal my buddies?"

Answer: "GLOBAL COOLDOWN! UGH please no. I hate global cooldown with the passion of 1000 fiery suns. In fact attunement swapping is instant so you can do it mid cast!!! Blog post coming Tuesday on thief also talks a bit about why we don't have global cooldowns and how our combat system works based on animations." Another answer to this question is also present, I assume it's from someone else working at ArenaNet. "Nope! You can throw down the firewall, swap to Water, and then support your allies immediately with water skills."

Question #39: "Was it always the plan to have the Mesmer in the line up? Or did you realise how pissed fans would be without it ;)"

Answer: "It was always the plan."

Question #40: "It seems that the Elementalist, Guardian, and Warrior are so powerful/versatile in PvP that any team that doesn't include at least 1 of them (or maybe all 3?) will be disadvantaged against a team that did. How are the niche roles that other professions fill balanced out to match those 3 professions power and versatility?"

Answer: "They are all that versatile to be honest. It all depends on how good you are at playing your build."

Question #41: "Can Rangers still throw traps?"

Answer: "Emphatically. Yes."

Question #42: "Of all the combat skills, which is the one you love to use most?"

Answer: "Personally, Savage Leap. But the coolest skill in the game is Phoenix. :) "

Question #43: "How much control does a Mesmer have over Clone and Phantasm behavior? Is there a UI in place to allow him/her to direct them, do they have the same AI as necromancer minions, or what exactly?"

Answer: "They will only attack the target upon which they were summoned. You cannot control them as much as Necromancer minions or a Ranger pet."

Question #44: "Which games do you feel influence you the most? What games are you currently playing? Skyrim?!"

Answer 1: "Influenced: Warsong on Genesis, Final Fantasies, Baldur's Gate 2, Planescape, War 2, War 3, SC 1, CS, Quake, Quake 2, Quake 3, Street Fighter 2, Soul Caliber, etc. Currently: LoL , Skyrim. Also Warmachine (tabletop). -Chap"

Answer 2: "Influence me the most? X-Com. When I played that game, that was the moment that I decided to get into making games because I wanted to pass on that quality level of experience to future gamers. Right now I am playing Battleheart on the ipad. Influence GW2?"

Question #45: "So, what happened to the sandwichmancer? Did it take an arrow to the knee and as a result, had to be removed from the game?"

Answer: "Colin is still here. He is busy crafting a fancy club sandwich."


Question #46: "Any favorite dungeon party set-up/teams you've had yet?"

Answer: "Any combination is actually very strong, which, in itself, is really one of our favorite things about the game. Instead of people needing to bring specific builds or professions, they just need to be good at whatever build/profession they bring."

Question #47: "What is the time frame/level required before you can play with other races? Will be playing with a younger few who may need assistance..."

Answer: "Just finish your race's introduction (tutorial area), and you can meet up via Asura gate once you go into your race's starting city!"

Question #48: "Is it possible to play a 'tanking' role as a Warrior?"

Answer: "Take a Mace/Sword and a hammer. Healing skill: I recommend healing signet. Utility skills: Endure Pain, "Shake It Off", Stomp."

Question #49: "Any comment on the Ranger pet irritation? "

Answer: "There is a special lotion that will help get rid of that. It's available at Karma vendors."

Question #50: "Can clones and phantasms be affected by boons and targeted by other beneficial skills?"

Answer: "For now, yes. This may change before release."

I've stopped grabbing the questions for now, I've been doing them all by hand and it seems like they've stopped. If you see any that I have forgotten feel free to PM me or add them in the comments below and I will add them. Enjoy!


New questions are being answered by ArenaNetTeam. (Local Time: 3:33, using this for my records)

Question: #51: "Without any sort of dedicated healer role what options will players in mob fights or PvP situations have to deal with intense focus fire? Escape tactics on cooldowns?I am fantastically excited about GW2, have loved the original since release. Thank you for posting this."

Answer: "Heal and Dodge. As well as use crowd control to stop it from happening. Block, blind, reflect, etc..."

Question: #52: "How did you get into the Industry? Was it your first choice when going to school?"

Answer: "I got a degree in computer science. Out of college I worked at a web dev company and then got a job working at Cavedog doing programming. I didn't REALLY get into design until I worked here at ArenaNet."

Question: #53: "I have heard rumors that organized pvp gives players a default set of gear for their class so everyone is on an even playing field. Can you confirm this? If not, will players have to grind for sets of pvp gear as they do in WoW?"

*Answer: "Absolutely NOT!!! No grinding in PvP. Here is how it works. You press a button that says go to PvP. You end up in the PvP lobby where you are max level, all skills and items and traits are unlocked and you make a build and go play in a hot join server. When you are done press the button again to return to PvE. It's that simple. Why anyone would want to spend time unlocking skills or leveling up in PvP is beyond me. :) If you want PvP with power creep and ganking and massive battles we have that too. It's called WvW."

Question: #54: "Phantasms: Do they look exactly the same as your char, but have a different name, or are they purple and transparant (like in the vid) and have a different name?"

Answer: "Somewhat purple and carry a purple weapon."

Question: #55: "Now that all classes have been released, do you have any ideas you'd be willing to share about plans to keep them all balanced with each other? EX: Right now the Ritualist is one of the stronger PvE classes (as compared to, say, a Ranger). In GW2, what would you do to try and make Rangers just as useful/in-demand as Rits?"

Answer: "We're going to work very hard to balance all professions so that they are all equally viable in PvE and PVP. This simply means playing the game a lot and constantly working to keep all the professions balanced."

Question #57: "This may have been answered a long time ago in some interview but I've always wondered what was your influence for having your weapon set be directly related to your combat skills? (Such as greatsword, shortbow, etc) Initially, this was my biggest complaint as I thought it greatly hampered your customization of your play style. I'm assuming your traits have a great deal to do with exactly this problem but I haven't really heard much since you announced the revamp of said traits. Would you care to elaborate on some of the different things we can see with skills that are affected by traits with the revised system? Also just wanted to add that I have not been more excited about a game since I was 11 years old. I think your team needs to be the standard for how game developers operate, with innovation and not repetition of the same IP."

Answer: "The main influence is that it just made sense. It let us making awesome skills like Savage leap on the sword, etc..."

Question #58: "How does Anet feel about having their work released ahead of them, like this week's leak? Is it 'no big deal, since it was only a couple of days', or would you guys rather like to, say, see fingers broken over it or something?"

Answer: "response edited by PR. ;)"

Question #59: "Can I draw on the map in GW2?"

Answer: "Yes! How could we give that up? :)"

Question #60: "Any details about WvW in the future? A video of WvW would be appreciated. I am really pumped up for this gameplay. Also, are dynamic events in WvW? Like a monster or creature attacking while you pvp."

Answer: "We've hinted a lot at WvW, but when we are ready I'm sure we will explain it a lot more! Hang in there."

Question #61: "How many classes do we have in total when GW2 gets released?"

Answer: "8."

Question #62: "What is the one thing that your are personally most excited about what the Mesmer offers to PvP?"

Answer: "Portal. :)"

Question #63: "Will people be able to grief a dynamic event by being present just to increase the event difficulty, but not actually contributing anything towards the completion of the event?"

Answer: "Nope. :)"

Question #64:" * Mesmers: It seems like the mainhand sword will only have room for a single (guessing very simple) autoattack, since they have both Leap and Illusionary Leap. What offhand would pair up well with the sword to allow for a true melee playstyle, and can you give any example skills?
Also, does summoning a clone or phantasm break enemy targeting? If not, how effective will they be as distractions in PvP?
Rangers: Utilities, from what we've seen in demos, have been pretty restricted to somewhat passive skill-types like signets, spirits, preparations, traps, and stances. Are there plans to introduce more active/interesting utility skills (more like Entangle, for instance) that other professions seem to have?"


Answer: "Hey Skyy, enjoy your posts on guru. :) Ok sword skill 1 is a combo so that gives it so dynamic. I like mixing it with sword or torch offhand, but really everything works. Yes it breaks targeting. Yeah we just did a pass on ranger utilities to get them to be as diverse and as good as the warrior ones."

Question #65: "I it possible to play a ranger without the pet and manage on par with other classes?"

Answer: "No, as soon as you enter combat your pet comes out. Trust me, you will want them. :)"

Question #66: " * Did aspects of Utopia end up in Guild Wars 2, or did Eye of the North get everything that wasn't scrapped?
Can you tell us anything about the Utopia Chronomancer and Summoner professions?"


Answer: "Dynamic Events. We have been pondering this concept for a long time. The idea that you don't have to fight for content in an MMO. I think it is what defines the game! That social aspect is really important to us because ultimately that is what an MMO is!"

Question #67: "It seems like there is a base of people who are disappointed by the Mesmer profession (I am definitely not one of them), because their mains were Ritualists and they feel they have no profession that represents that well. What GW2 profession do you feel will cater to that subset of players?"

Answer: "In the way that Ritualists were indirect suppport in GW1, many classes in GW2 can support their allies as the Ritualist did. Rangers can bring nature spirits, Necromancers can bring minions, Elementalists can bring familiars, Mesmers have their illusions, etc. etc. All classes can bring buffs, boons, etc."

Question #68: "Familiars?"

Answer: "Summon elemental."

Question #69: "The idea of the magical swordsman has always been a favorite of mine. Just about every game that I can accomplish such a creation I do; be it the Mystic Knight in Final Fantasy 5 or an Eldritch Knight in D&D/Pathfinder. To say the least, I am excited to explore this iteration of my favorite hybrid!" Someone else added an additional comment to this reply, "I agree with this guy! Hearing illusion/duelist makes me one happy guy!"

Answer: "Me too. I loved the Mesmer in GW1, but to be honest I love the new one even more! Once you get used to the whole idea of in world hexes it just is a lot of fun and a really active profession in both PvP and PvE."

Question #70: "Will condition removal skills remove the whole stack of confusion or will players have to cast their condition removal more than once to get rid of the whole stack? "

Answer: "When you remove a specific condition it always remove the whole stack, however the specific skills can remove 1 condition or many."

Question #71: "I'm dutch so at first sorry if my English isn't correct. I've got a question. After you have completed the main story in GW2 are there still awesome things to do that require skill? Hardcore instances you can play with some friends and get nice and rare loot? I really look forward to this game, but sometimes I'm afraid it's gonna be too easy."

Answer: "Dungeons, WvW, PvP, giant boss dynamic events! "

Question #72: "What determines the abilities of the illusions, please?"

Answer: "I do :P"

Question #73: "Can you give us more info on builds and traits and if we will be able to constantly change our build or be locked into a certain type like other games?"

Answer: "Lets just say there are a lot of options and you can change it fairly freely. Especially in the PvP lobby!"

Question #74: "I'm good friends with your buddy jonathan sharp. He used to play starcraft at my house back in the day when LC (Louisiana College) used to block bnet ports."

Answer: "Chap says hi Dave! Remember he invented the Ultralisk Rush!"

Question #75: "How many skills are you going to be able to choose from? A lot of the complaints i have heard is that this is a dumbed down version with out freedom to make builds how you want them to play. "

Answer: "There is so much build making in GW2 sometimes it is staggering. I think people that are worried about this will be just fine. It is a new system with a lot of layers, each of which has a lot of choice to be made. "


Local Time: 5:57pm - Updated Questions coming shortly as I get them all organized.

Question #76: "I was planning on having Necro, Thief and Ranger as playing characters but now I've changed to Mesmer. It's so rewarding to play a class that requires mastery."

Answer: "Cool. To be honest I hope they all have this feel to them. All the professions are pretty simple to play, but also really have a pretty high ceiling, including even the "boring" warrior, who I love, but in a game with positioning has a ton of stuff to learn in this system."

Question #77: "This is literally the first game in which I actually want to play a warrior. Almost every RPG and/or MMO seems to have them doing the same few moves. The addition of shouts, warhorns, and banners in combination with the weapon variety blew my mind! They seem to be truly a Warrior, not just the requisite sword and shield guy."

Answer: "Thanks. I love the Warrior!"

Question #78: " * Back in 2010 I was at the NYC after party demo event and played a necro. Back then Death shroud teleported you back to your original location when it ended, how does that mechanic work currently?

*How many souls need to be sacrificed to get into the closed beta :P"

Answer: "So the walk and teleport back thing got pulled out of death shroud and rolled into a new utility skill called Spectral Walk."

Question #79: "I was a huge fan of the warrior priest mechanics in warhammer, and what warcraft is doing with monks. I love the satisfaction of beating on a guy with a big hammer, and being capable of healing nearby friendlies in the process. Are there any classes that fall in to that category in GW2?"

Answer: "Absolutely. Take a look at the Guardian. http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/guardian/"

Question #80: "There are lots of PvP questions here. For those of us who prefer PvE, what's going to make this even better than the PvE in GW1?

Side note: I've played the first one with all of my nephews who in a completely different part of the country, and it was a great way to keep up and have fun with them. I look forward to continuing that in GW2."

Answer: "Everything. Glad you asked, I think our PvE is so much more dynamic this time around. While the skills may seem PvP focused at times we put a lot of thought into how this is going to play in PvE as well, moving, dodging etc. On top of that I think Dynamic events are going to change the way people expect to experience content in an MMO. No more kill stealing, no being on the wrong step of a quest from your buddies, no waiting in line for someone to complete an escort or kill a boss so that you can do it.

The world being dynamic around you and feeling like you need to get in there, help take the garrison back and do it not just for yourself but for everyone on your server working together."

Question #81: "Is the mesmer overpowered?"

Answer: "Absolutely! Just as overpowered as the other 7!"

Question #82: "I want your job (title, not actual job... Co-workers, BFF duh). How can I get it?"

Answer: " * Take a degree in Philosophy and Religion, minor in psychology, * Play wayyyyyy too much Starcraft in college, * Become a designer, * Profit."

-Chap"

Question #83: "So not to dilute the conversation, but what specifically did you do to promote yourself as a designer? Did you learn to program or code in SC, or other games you loved, and showed off mods or other customizations? Did you present a portfolio? I'm interested in becoming a designer myself, since I love conceptualizing and (well...) designing a game more so than creating it. I'm just curious how you went about exulting your deeds."

Answer: "I played high level 1on1 and 2on2 Starcraft (focused on the latter). With that skill set, I was then got into the industry doing multi-player design and balance on an RTS. From there I had my foot in design, and have since branched into content design, systems design, and balance.

-Chap"

Question #84: "I have played a primary healer based class since DAoC. I would love to continue doing this, however, there will not be a primary healer based class in GW2.. What type of char would you suggest to get the closest to that particular role?"

Answer: "Any one of them can fulfill that support role you are talking about. The more obvious choices are things like Staff Guardian, Water Elementalist, but there are ways to do interesting support with every profession."

Question #85: "I feel like you're forgetting TF2. You have an entire class dedicated as an homage to that game."

Answer: "D'oh, no you're right. I spent a lot of time playing TF2 as well. ;) I preferred Sniper/Demo, in case you were wondering! -Chap"

Question #86: "Are players going to have to watch for a tiny icon to figure out if they are hit with the confusion condition, or is there going to be a noticeable change to your character if you are confused?"

Answer: "There will be an effect that plays on apply to show you that you are confused. You will also see the damage taken when you use a skill, as well as the debuff icon. That all make sense or are you now more confused? :)"

Question #87: "Why did ye add self heals to all professions instead of a dedicated healer class? How does PvP play with this?"

Answer: "Because we think dedicated roles create dependencies which we don't think are fun. Most great PvP games do not have forced roles like this so I'm pretty sure it will make our PvP more exciting."

Question #88: "hey I'm kind of new to the Guild Wars series and was thinking about getting into it, and from your website one of the things I didn't completely understand was the premise. Is the premise basically all the races hate each other and want to defeat the other? Or is there a horde vs alliance aspect? game looks cool, ty for doing an AMA"

Answer: "No, the game is about the races coming together against a greater evil. Our content of dynamic events promotes players working together so we try to avoid any faction based stuff that is typical of current gen MMOs."

Question #89: "More information about the Elixir Gun for Engineer please?"

Answer: "Sure:
Elixir Dart: Fire a dart that makes your foes weak or vulnerable.
Elixir F: Fire concentrated Elixir F that bounces between targets crippling foes and applying swiftness to allies.
Elixir Spray: Spray elixir fumes in a cone pattern poisoning enemies and removing conditions from allies.
Acid Bomb: Leap back blasting the ground with acid damaging foes that touch it.
Super Elixir: Shoot an elixir orb that heals allies on impact and creates a healing area.
Toolbelt skill: Vent a healing mist that applies regeneration to yourself and allies."


Question #90: "How many of you are working on GW2?"

Answer: "Just one of myself, we haven't invented cloning technology yet, despite what the mesmer videos might show you. The team size, I don't know it's pretty big though. :)"

Question #91: "game is simpler than wow now. 5 weapon skills maybe 20 if you switch out weapons. In guild wars 1 you had like over 200 for one type of weapon."

Answer: "How many of them were really used? I can think of two sword warrior builds.
Dragon Slash/Sun and Moon
Sever/Gash/Final


Now you can mix match sword with sword offhand, axe offhand, mace offhand, warhorn, shield."

Question #92: "I'm wicked excited to play a Ranger, so I can use the Rainbow Jellyfish I unlocked in my HOM. How early in the game will I be able to use it?"

Answer: "As soon as you go underwater!"

Question #93: "Hi guy my question is. going way from guild vs guild gvgs what in guild wars 2 do you think will keep the organized pvps to stay with guild wars 2 because there is no Hall Of Heros or anything like PVP from the old game ?"

Answer: "There will in fact be a much more organized structure where players form teams and earn points playing in 5v5 tournaments to qualify for larger and larger tournaments. The goal is to create much more of an e-sport feel this time around."

Question #94: "You guys have been working so hard on this but I have one question to ask you guys... Would you like some tea?"

Answer: "Earl Grey...Hot"

Question #95: "I'm more of a magic-type when it comes to MMOs, and I've got a question about your Elementalist's Conjure spells. "The elementalist uses Conjure spells to summon useful items and potent weapons that she or other party members can use." What kind of useful items are we talking about here?"

Answer: "How about a Lightning Hammer that lets you summon a lightning storm, leap at enemies, encircle them with a static field and send them flying with a blast of wind?"

Question #96: "What underwater weapons can the mesmer use?"

Answer: "Spear and Trident"

Question #97: "In GW1 bows had unlimited amount of arrows, will GW2 carry that also?"

Answer: "Yes, managing arrows is not my idea of immersive enough to be fun."

Question #98: "No Open World pvp? Thats a deal breaker. How does WvW replace the joy of ganking? I love the idea of versatility and specific builds. However, there are serious implications for balance. In other words, there will ALWAYS be a top build for doing X job, especially considering synergies between classes. My question is: How do you plan on balancing this game?"

Answer: "WvW is everything you want about ganking. If you played DaoC, the game considered by most to have the finest open PvP it worked in a very similar way. There is a part of the world with tons of fun stuff to do where other players from other servers can come and find you doing that stuff and kill you. How does that not satisfy open PvP?"


Question #99: "You guys have been working so hard on this but I have one question to ask you guys... Would you like some tea?"

Answer: "I'd love some black tea please. :) -Chap"

Question #100: "As a experienced MMOPRG player I really look forward to this game. It really seems like you have taken some of the best of the current MMOPRGS into one game and while being innovativ. But I have some concers about the whole combat thing. I noticed you dont have any kind of energy attached to any professions. So my questions is, isnt it to easy to just spam the best abillity ? Im afraid there would be no variation im combat and everyone just running around using the same skills. I have another question concerning endgame. What options do you have when you reach maxlvl? I like PvP but love PvE, I have seen videos of PvP but nothing maxlvl PvE except those big event with 100+ people. Will there come dungeons with 5-10-20 members only? and will the encounters of the dungeons be Challenging and not just tanknspank as we have seen in WoW? "

Answer: "Sure if there was a "best" ability. We try to build better abilities than that so they are all versatile and situational so that the cost of using one is the opportunity cost of not using another. I think the idea that you need to have tons of things to manage makes combat interesting is a bit flawed. All you need is interesting decisions to make and how you go about giving that to players can vary."

Question #101: "How similar is the Mesmer class going to be to it's GW1 counterpart? It definitely looks better for PvE, but is PvP still going to be "Haha, you're going against a Mesmer, you don't get to use your skills!"

Answer: "We have some interviews that should be sprouting up all over the web soon in which Jon/I talk about exactly this! :) -Chap"

Question #102: "I know this topic has been beaten to death, but I have yet to hear from a Dev about it, and as a MMORPG lover, this is very important. How do you guys plan on making extremely challenging player vs. environment instances with no dedicated tank or healer professions?"

Answer: "I guess my question is why are those required? Don't those generally make things more static, when clearly things that are dynamic and changing that must be reacted too are more difficult?"

Question #103: "Hey, as a huge fan of the original game and a guy who's been checking the GW2 blog every day since its release, I was wondering (and I know that you guys don't answer it, so I won't be particularly specific) if it is safe to assume that the game will be released next year? Even a "We won't answer that you silly flippy" will suffice."

Answer: "We won't answer that you silly flippy"

Question #104 "Healing played a major role in GW, a good healer was needed for any PVP team, and was necessary for many parts of the game. How is healing geared in GW2, is healing still put on one member, or do more classes have healing abilities?"

Answer: "Oh look a link. :) http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/healing-death/"

Question #105: "Are you still here? If so, during the design process, do you ever sit there with a hot cup of awesome coffee, sit back, recline, and smile about how you're creating a game to make WoW look bad?"

Answer: "Sit back? Recline? What are these strange notions you speak of? We're trying to ship a game here! :) -Chap"

Question #106: "Are thieves going to able to use a bow as a main-hand weapon? If they are able to, is it going to be as good as the regular daggers?, I like rangers but I like the thief at the same time, I hate choosing between those 2 :/"

Answer: "So first of all as a thief you can pick 2 weapon sets. Secondly a shortbow thief is awesome. I bet you can find some footage on youtube, but basically he has a ground target skill that teleports you where the arrow hits."

Question #107: "I have a question about getting gear in PVP. You said that people will be equalized on levels and gear so that there would be no balance issues, so i don't understand how will the gear help us if there will be no difference in the gear we have? "

Answer: "Because instead of gringding for gear the interesting choice is which gear helps compliment what you are trying to do. Do you get the sword which bleeds when you Crit or one that recharges your dodge meter when you swap weapons? Those are just samples and may not appear in the game but should give you an idea of what different weapon choices might do."

Question #108: " * Why did you pick a PvP gametype that rewards players for avoiding combat?
How do you expect conquest to be an enjoyable e-sport to watch when there's no center of attention and just a bunch of people running around doing 1v1's/ 2v1's?
Why do you insist on a PvP gametype that punishes players for sticking together as a unit? Why are you preventing a team from operating as a 5-person unit, and making game mechanics that make that unviable?
Why MUST the game reduce to mindlessly outnumbering opponents at capture points?
Why did you decide to make the winner of a combat PvP game the one who has intangible "points" for standing on circles, rather than the team who accomplishes a tangible objective?"


Answer: "We picked the game type that works best for how our game plays. Not sure why you think it will reward players for avoiding combat, I certainly don't do that when I play other highly competitive games with this format. Battlefield, LoL"

Question #109: "What's your opinion on GW2 as an esport? I do remember when WoW made their stab at the esport market but ultimately failed because non-players had no chance at following the action. One of the great things about Starcraft 2 and the FPS games we currently see on more popular tournaments is that you can get a good feel for what's happening without any prior knowledge. What will GW2 do to address this?"

Answer: "Can't give details yet, but we definitely plan to support GW2 as an Esport! :) -Chap"

Question #110: "Can you speak to the challenges of designing against it? Is it a crutch designers rely on to drag out the average lifetime value of their paying customer (ie. taking more months to progress)?, What is Guild Wars doing to solve the grind problem? SWTOR has it in abundance, and I can't think of any MMO to date that didn't have it at all. Grind can be anything from lame quests (fetch quests being the main culprit, no matter how many ways they are reskinned), to leveling up skills (think craft skills), etc."

Answer: "Not necessarily a challenge. For example we don't have an exponential xp curve for leveling. In fact once you hit level 30ish the time to next level is almost identical, approximately 90 minutes for an decent player. It means every day that I log in I can make progress. Ultimately at the end of the day we want you to play because the game is fun."

Question #111: "Could you tell us what the Guardian's other spirit weapons are and what they do?"

Answer: "How about this one?
Bow of Truth: Summon an arcane bow to remove conditions from you and your allies. Activate it to summon a barrage of healing rain."


Question #112: "Why are dual professions gone? Would it still be up for future considerations/additions?"

Answer: "We felt that dual professions were making balance more difficult and holding back just how cool we could make the professions so we cut them in favor of things like Elementalists being able to attune. "

Question #113: "In the recent Mesmer skill video it appeared a ranger used the skill, Rapid Fire, (previously a longbow skill) with a short bow. Is this official? Any news on the replacement longbow skill if so?"

Answer: "No it was a longbow, you can just move while using longbow now, cause its more "FUN""

Question #114: "Hey! Engineer lover here! You told us some time ago the misterious Tool Kit was, strangely enough, focused on Turret support. An utility skill designed to be just a support of other utility skills? :O Any insight on the Tool Kit skill? Thanks in advance!"

Answer: "Tool Kit has actually morphed a few times. I don't want to spoil everything but its one of my favorites right now. :)"

Question #115: "Will the Mesmer's portal skill have a long cooldown(to cast the portal), because I can imagine that people will spam that ability if they have a short cool down."

Answer: "Yup. :)"

Question #116: "When i start the game to pvp: can I choose any class, access every skill/weapon, and play in all facets of pvp right away ? or is there some sort of progression/unlocking system to access different areas or facets of PvP?"

Answer: "Yup, make a character, hit the go to PvP button and play."

Question #117: "Will this be another TAB123 combat game? I'm getting tired of playing these mmos that still use the same archaic combat system designed for 56k modems."

Answer: "If actively dodging attacks, moving while casting, and managing use of skills based on situations rather than min maxing energy costs count as things that make it different for you then you will be one happy camper. :)"


Question #118: "so you can only have 5 skills for the weapon slots and the other 5 can be changed quite a bit, but for the first 5 it feels like there isnt enough choice. in a earlier posting you said how many do you actually use. but to be honest with my necromancer i loved just using the really weird spells and builds that no one else used and i changed these quite often. I havent played the game yet so i cant say it will be bad and i will get the game anyway but with all the people going to play the game wont it get a bit much that pretty much all of warriors for example will be using the same first 5 skills."

Answer: "Well on top of it actually feeling pretty different because the skills combine in a multitude of ways that make different strategies viable for each weapon, we also have a trait system that modifies your character and will change how you play. On top of that most professions have 2 weapon sets so you don't just pick a weapon, you pick 2 sets which creates a lot more options for wacky combos."

Question #119: "are there gonna be a lot of pets for rangers to get? on the gameplay videos I mostly saw bear/dog/wolf...was just hoping that there could be some more unique stuff"

Answer: "There are 12 families of pets each with different variety inside of them. :)"

Question #120: "Two questions, in WvW will the players be able to keep their gear or will every player be equal? Also what's the cooldown on how long a player can switch weapons? Can you cast your skills on one weapon and then use the other weapon to cast those skills also?"

Answer: "Yes WvW is gear based. When you weapon swap in combat its a 10 second cooldown before you can go back."

Question #121: "Who would win 1v1, Minstrel or Commando?"

Answer: "It would be a TIE!!!"

Question #122: "I played the demo's at Gamescom this year and there were 2 things that popped out:
During a PvP match it was possible to change not only your weapon sets by swapping, but also take weapons from your inventory and swap out weapon sets entirely. (Out of combat ofcourse)
It was also possible to change any ultility skill that wasn't on recharge for any other one that wasn't on recharge, atleast out of combat.


Will these stay in the game, has it already been changed or was this for demo purposes so people could experience everything?"

Answer: "It actually already works a bit different but we definitely don't want people swapping between each combat."

Question #123: "How long does the average "hot join able" pvp match last? Can I jump in play for 5-10 minutes and jump out? Or do I have to fully commit myself for a certain time period?"

Answer: "About 8-12 minutes."

Question #124: "Will there be more biography questions in the final release than in the demo during character creation?"

Answer: "There won't be more biography questions per se but each profession has one unique question and each race has three unique questions so not all of them have been seen yet. During the story itself you will also get the opportunity to answer questions that are similar in nature to the biography questions which will cause the story to branch even further. "

Question #125: "Jon Peters: being an avid fan of DAOC I am sure you are aware of the development of realm pride, rivalries on the battlefield both by name and guild. What concerns me is the rotation of WvW every 2 weeks removing this aspect from Gw2. Could you elaborate on the purpose of this rotation? I also understand there will be world wide bonuses after taking certain objectives in WvW. How will these 'relics' be affected by the bi weekly rotation?"

Answer: "The purpose of the rotation is to keep match-ups fresh. If you played a lot of DaoC (as I'm sure you did by your name) then you'll know that it is very easy for one realm to achieve an advantage of skill or numbers over another realm, at that point it becomes less fun for everyone involved, both the winners and the losers. We feel like the rotation helps keep worlds of similar ability level playing each other. Rather than hurting rivalries we expect this to enhance them as it should result in much more competitive play overall. Take for example rivals in professional sports, even though most teams only play a few times a year rivalries will still develop."

Question #126: "What are the Mesmer biography questions?"

Answer: "Every profession has one biography question that deals with their starting equipment. Every mesmer starts with a harlequin/theater style mask and their question determines the face represented on that mask. "

Question #127: "I am in high school currently! What things should I do now to prepare for a job at ArenaNet in 6 years?"

Answer: "The answer to this really depends on what job you are most interested in/suited for. In general education and practical application are the best ways to develop your skills. If you're a coder then write as much code as possible, an artist should draw/model/paint as much as possible, a designer should seek a good education in a broad variety of subjects and play/analyze as many games as possible. In all of these cases try to get involved in a some kind of game development project whether it's making your own Indy game or modding a preexisting game. Good luck!"

Question #128: "For humans, do you have to select a certain god at creation to be able to use that god's elite skill later in the game? Essentially, will there ever be a time when I won't have access to certain racial skills even if I am that race?"

Answer: "You can use any of your racial skills regardless of what you answer in your biography."

Question #129: "Welcome Eric Glad to have you, What will transitioning between PvE and WvW be like?"

Answer: "You simply walk through an asura gate or use a conveniently located UI button and it will take you to your home map."

Question #130: "If I could prove my worth by creating good board and card games, do I have any chance of ever becoming a game designer (even without a degree)? Is it like an art job where you can provide a portfolio of what you can do?"

Answer: "It may vary from company to company but for us creating board and card games is certainly applicable. Kevin Millard who is one of our content designers worked in the pencil and paper game design field and had no video game design experience when we hired him. Doing things like making levels with a map editing program like the ones found in Neverwinter Nights or Starcraft can also be a great way to show what you can do. "

Question #131: "We've heard that the Guardian has less health than the Warrior. Could you rank the professions from most health to least?"

Answer: " * High: Warrior Necromancer
Medium: Ranger Engineer Guardian
Low: Thief Mesmer Elementalist"


Question #132: "The Last profession was officially introduced and the closed beta already have its date. Is there anything else that we should really look forward to before the year ends aside from those?"

Answer: "There is at least one more blog post scheduled to go up next week."

Question #133: "A question for Eric himself: What was your education like? Did you follow a game design education or was it something unrelated? I'm asking since I'm currently studying Game Art & Design and want something to compare too. (If you perhaps know anything about Izzy's education I would also like to know :) )"

Answer: "I studied liberal arts with a concentration in history and a minor in art at CSUSB. At the time I was studying to be an elementary school teacher and dropped out early to pursue a career as an artist. Got lucky enough to get a job at Blizzard as my first industry job. I think we've got game designers from a number of different backgrounds here ex-artists, ex-programmers, ex-QA members, some people with degrees and some without. We have a few designers who attended game schools like DigiPen and the Guildhall."


Question #134: "What is a typical day like at ArenaNet?"

Answer "For me I come in read email for a few min until my outlook tells me I need to go a meeting of some sort. I head to a meeting room in which I normally stand in front of a white board and draw/write something about while debating some crazy subject with a group of people. Then we leave the room and coodiate as a team figuring out whos going to do the work or whos going to follow up with Art/Programing. We do focus play tests to test our different content and game types and then talk about our results, and read a lot of message boards. : ) ~Izzy"

Question #135: "To Izzy: One of the best things about competitive GW1 PvP was that a perfectly united team was always the most successful. If you had a team that could (for example) spike perfectly, and would operate as a big, organized unit, you'd never lose to a less organized team. The biggest "imbalance" of HA was IWAY, where people complained the game became less fun when the dominate play-style did not require ventrilo or coordinated organization. With conquest, do we have to abandon this united organization we love? Why does conquest constantly try to discourage operating as a unit, and encourage splitting up and acting as individuals?"

Answer "We still find this to be true, an organized team still spikes coordiantes collapses, pushes the enemy objectives, reacts to the enemies tactics and movements as a group. (Chap they just killed out treb I'll grab the repair part you clear the center path for me, John C resses in 20 secs let make sure it's up in time) or (Chap Rampage is up in 20 seconds meet me in middle for a big push, John C we need treb fire in the middle asap). Capture point just represent territory you care about and control so it creates things to fight over. Coordination and team work at the highest level is still beyond important. ~Izzy"

Question #136: "How long will Dynamic Events affect an area after completion? Forever? Cant wait for open beta!"

Answer "All depends on the event, if the Dredge set up a fort in an area and start sending out raiding parties and there is an event to take that fort down. They will keep sending out raiding parties harassing everyone until that fort is defeated, after it's defeated it might be a bit before the Dredge muster up enough forces to send out some workers to build another one which you can stop. "

Question #137: "According to Jon Peters or Eric Flannum in a previous Q&A, and i'm paraphrasing, the profession release went from simplest to most complex, so you might try a warrior or elementalist?"

Answer "I think most of the professions can be simple or complex based on how you spec them some are a little more complex out of the box like Elementalist or Mesmer but it really depends on your weapon choice and build. "

Question #138: "Who is the best PvPer at Arenanet?"

Answer "Jonathan Sharp, or Chaplin. ~Izzy"

Question #139: "Hey, thanks for taking the time to answer so many our questions! :) Recently, in one of the G-Star videos, it appeared as if a Guardian used a new elite- one that seemed to emanate a massive blue aura, with the Guardian then able to send out multiple blue flames. Could you perhaps name and detail this ability, elite or not?"

Answer "This elite is called Tomb of Wrath, it locks the Guardian in place for it's duration and gives them access to 5 new skills. One of those skills is called Judgement which knocks down all targets for 5s. (Which is the big blue light). The other skills are. Conflagrate: AoE Burn. Affliction: A projectile that cripples and weakness foes and bounces 10 times. Smiter's Boon: A swiftness and Might buff for all nearby allies. Zealot's Fervor: Grants frenzy to all nearby allies."

Question #140: "How long does the mesmer portal skill last? What's the distance that you can place them appart and how does the player know that he is to far to place the other end? Say in the Battle of Kyhlo map I place the first portal in the clocktower capture point, then would it be possible to run to the windmill, capture it, place the other end, then teleport back to the clocktower? PS: We met at Gamescom and I just want to thank you for the compliment on me playing the Warrior. You can't believe how good it feels to hear that from a designer!"

Answer "We're still working on the distances and timing for it but we have a number of limiting factors on it currently you cannot place an exit farther then a radar and after the exit is placed it will expire after 20 seconds. We've found a number of crazy uses for it all ready one we used today was Chap dropped a portal while I was taking a the Mansion point and then placed a portal inside the clock tower so right as I finished capping the point I could jump through the portal and help him in the fight. ~Izzy"

Question #141: "Will the engineer have anything like a jetpack skill (allowing 3D movement with your other skills for a short time) or backpack kit (with its own skills) possibly as an elite with Gatling guns on it?"

Answer "The engineer does not have a jetpack he does how ever have rocket boots that blast him backwords an insanely far distance. He can also use Jump Shot with the rifle and jump up on ledges."

Question #142: "Will I be frowned upon if I only heal and support in dungeons? I love healing in other MMORPGs, staying at the back and make sure people are safe."

Answer "You can play that role if you like it's just we're designing things so it's not required. It is however not possible to be just a healer you can build your character to be more supporty and have more powerful heals the other professions it's just with only a few of your skills being heals as a support character you have to focus on other things like setting up cross profession combos buffing allies, or protect allies."

Question #143: "Can we get an example or two of how the Mesmer's healing spells looks like?"

Answer "One of his heals is Mirror which heals him and reflex's projectiles for a short period of time."

Question #144: "Hai Mr Jon, I wish to seek knowledge on that of the class of the engineer. What role do you see this person playing more often, support? dmg? anti-support? defensive? Passive-Aggressive? I appreciate!"

Answer "Like all professions he can do all 3 rolls. I've seen him do support with Elixirs very well, he does damage with either rifle builds or turret builds. And his tank and defensive builds are often a mixture of gadgets and elixirs . One of our fav is dropping an Elixir R (which resurrects nearby allies) on yourself right before you go down which effectively self reses you. This however takes careful timing, and if you fightning against it when you see it you either wait or knock them out of it before finishing them off. ~Izzy"

Question #145: "I always get home too late and miss out on awesome opportunities like this :("

Answer: "we're still here :P"

Question #146: "Quick question: Does the Engineer shield skill 'absorb' work on any type of projectile including arrows, or will it only work on magic type projectiles like fireball? Edit: Thank you for the clarification. While it would be pretty awesome to absorb a treb shot, it is still a pretty entertaining skill as is. The stronger the enemy attack (within reason) the stronger you are."

Answer "it works on any projectile that isn't set to unblockable. So if we don't want an engineer absorbing something like say a treb shot we set it to unblockable. ~Izzy"

Question #147: "Unsure this will get an answer, but how does one get into the Community Management profession?"

Answer "You will get different answers depending on who you ask. Even within the ArenaNet Community Team, all of us got into this job differently. Community management as a profession isn't really standardized in terms of formal education, either.

One of the things we all have in common is that we were all involved in communities as a hobby prior to getting jobs as community managers. The best thing you can do is think of yourself as a community manager right now, because if you're passionate about communities, you're already involved in them in some way (organizing, moderating, creating content, etc.). Build your portfolio of skills right now, and when you do apply to community management jobs, you can point to your experience. Even experience on fan sites or blogs is helpful.

One other thing I can say is that these are some of the more important qualities a community manager can have:
Good instincts
Patience
Thick skin
Good project management skills


There are a bunch of community management blogs and stuff that I read for best-practices things and keeping tabs on the profession. If you're on Twitter (and as an aspiring CM, you should be using or familiar with major social networks :-)), send a tweet to @Brinstar and I can link you to them.

Hope that helps. :-)

~Regina"

Question #148: "Finally off work and was able to read the back log of answers, thanks a bunch for this! I love the tidbit you dropped about someone's Support Thief handing out venom's. A support based stealth class could very well be my ideal build ever. But I also just love the idea of a little tiny Asura Guardian. Not many questions about the Guardian being asked. Anything new/changed/relevant about guardian's? Or instead, any info on how the Asura racials work?"

Answer "The guardian hasn't changed very much but here's a fun trait that might fit the style you seem to like. Guardians can equip a trait that creates a small aoe heal at the location they dodge to. This makes for an interesting style of play where the guardian relies on being nimble and dodging strategically to support their allies."


Question #149: "I am currently doing my thesis = making my own 3D game. I figured this is a good move to get involved with games as a profession. I would really like to work on a big game with a big team. What advice can you give me?"

Answer "Sounds like you're on the right track. Any experience is good experience. The next step is for you to keep an eye out for job openings at companies that you like. Apply to any entry level type position you see. Don't ever assume you aren't qualified for a position, getting your foot in the door somewhere can be a big challenge but I've found that if you have some aptitude and don't let yourself get discouraged you'll eventually get a chance somewhere."

Question #150: "For the guardian are there any spirits you can summon that can support/buff your allies?"

Answer "Yes, for example the skill Bow of Truth summons a spirit bow that removes conditions from you and your allies."

Question #151: "So, me and my friends are going to buy GW2 when it comes out, no question. I've been reading up and, since this'll be my first time playing GW2, I've been wondering whether I should pick Elementalist or Ranger. I like classes with some sense of survivability, but mostly hardcore long range damage, and both look pretty great in that regard. We'll all probably be playing humans."

Answer "Personally I would pick the ranger but that has more to do with me liking that archetype than any actual effectiveness. To be honest you can build almost any profession for ranged damage and survivability, a warrior who specializes in longbow and rifle for example has very good ranged damage along with the armor and high health that being a warrior brings. A mesmer with a staff on the other hand is survivable but relies on kiting, applying conditions, and using illusions for deception. My advice is to try several professions and see which style you find the most fun."

Question #152: "What sort of tools do you use for balancing classes? Is it entirely guess and check based on player results, or do you do any sort of mathematical optimization?"

Answer "A lot of it is Excel, and just organizing your data in a way so you can parse it. We like to approach balance from a few different angles, we use math to find some issues, play balance for some, play test feedback, gut feeling on other, data analysis. Pretty much anything and everything we can use we use. We found any single approach has it's strengths and weakness so we like to make sure we use multiple. ~Izzy"

Question #153: "Are people using ranged weapons still horribly screwed over by bridges? That's probably my least favorite thing about GW1, because it just doesn't make sense, even on a 'how is this implemented' level."

Answer "No problems for ranged weapon users firing off of bridges at all. Guild Wars 1 wasn't a true 3D engine. Guild Wars 2 is. "

Question #154: "My favorite aspect of GW was the flexibility for setting up multiplayer classes, especially when designing and building groups. I really enjoyed the pvp and what pve I did, I had too. What are the plans for GW2 with regards to PvP skills and gear? "

Answer "In competitive PvP all players start with access to the same skills and gear. You don't have to do any PvE at all if you don't want to."

Question #155: "As a Ranger with Combinations abilities, Is the pet and the player going to have combos together when attacking, controlling, and supporting?"

Answer "Some of the pets can indeed create combos with the ranger controlling them. The murrellow for instance can create a poison cloud which is a combo initiator. Conversely devourers fire projectiles which can act as combo finishers."

Question #156: "How seriously are you taking PvP as a legit form of competitive play. IE: Is it e-sports material?"

Answer "e take our competitive PvP very seriously and are designing it to be very e-sport friendly."

Question #157: "How does line of sight work? Is it possible to be within firing range of someone and still be safe hiding behind cover?"

Answer "Absolutely possible. You'd still be vulnerable to them laying down an AOE and hitting you with part of it though."


Q: For humans, do you have to select a certain god at creation to be able to use that god's elite skill later in the game?

A: Essentially, will there ever be a time when I won't have access to certain racial skills even if I am that race?


Q: Welcome Eric Glad to have you, What will transitioning between PvE and WvW be like?


A: You simply walk through an asura gate or use a conveniently located UI button and it will take you to your home map.


Q: We've heard that the Guardian has less health than the Warrior. Could you rank the professions from most health to least?


A: High: Warrior Necromancer

Medium: Ranger Engineer Guardian

Low: Thief Mesmer Elementalist


Q: The Last profession was officially introduced and the closed beta already have its date. Is there anything else that we should really look forward to before the year ends aside from those?


A: There is at least one more blog post scheduled to go up next week.


Q: What are the Mesmer biography questions?


A; Every profession has one biography question that deals with their starting equipment. Every mesmer starts with a harlequin/theater style mask and their question determines the face represented on that mask.


Q: Jon Peters: being an avid fan of DAOC I am sure you are aware of the development of realm pride, rivalries on the battlefield both by name and guild. What concerns me is the rotation of WvW every 2 weeks removing this aspect from Gw2. Could you elaborate on the purpose of this rotation? I also understand there will be world wide bonuses after taking certain objectives in WvW. How will these 'relics' be affected by the bi weekly rotation?


A: The purpose of the rotation is to keep match-ups fresh. If you played a lot of DaoC (as I'm sure you did by your name) then you'll know that it is very easy for one realm to achieve an advantage of skill or numbers over another realm, at that point it becomes less fun for everyone involved, both the winners and the losers. We feel like the rotation helps keep worlds of similar ability level playing each other. Rather than hurting rivalries we expect this to enhance them as it should result in much more competitive play overall. Take for example rivals in professional sports, even though most teams only play a few times a year rivalries will still develop.


Q: Will there be more biography questions in the final release than in the demo during character creation?


A: There won't be more biography questions per se but each profession has one unique question and each race has three unique questions so not all of them have been seen yet. During the story itself you will also get the opportunity to answer questions that are similar in nature to the biography questions which will cause the story to branch even further.


Q: How long does the average "hot join able" pvp match last? Can I jump in play for 5-10 minutes and jump out? Or do I have to fully commit myself for a certain time period?


A: About 8-12 minutes.


Q: I played the demo's at Gamescom this year and there were 2 things that popped out:

1. During a PvP match it was possible to change not only your weapon sets by swapping, but also take weapons from your inventory and swap out weapon sets entirely. (Out of combat ofcourse)

2. It was also possible to change any ultility skill that wasn't on recharge for any other one that wasn't on recharge, atleast out of combat.

Will these stay in the game, has it already been changed or was this for demo purposes so people could experience everything?


A: It actually already works a bit different but we definitely don't want people swapping between each combat.


Q: Two questions, in WvW will the players be able to keep their gear or will every player be equal? Also what's the cooldown on how long a player can switch weapons? Can you cast your skills on one weapon and then use the other weapon to cast those skills also?


A: Yes WvW is gear based. When you weapon swap in combat its a 10 second cooldown before you can go back.


Q: Are there gonna be a lot of pets for rangers to get? on the gameplay videos I mostly saw bear/dog/wolf...was just hoping that there could be some more unique stuff


A: There are 12 families of pets each with different variety inside of them. :)


Q: so you can only have 5 skills for the weapon slots and the other 5 can be changed quite a bit, but for the first 5 it feels like there isnt enough choice. in a earlier posting you said how many do you actually use. but to be honest with my necromancer i loved just using the really weird spells and builds that no one else used and i changed these quite often.

i havent played the game yet so i cant say it will be bad and i will get the game anyway but with all the people going to play the game wont it get a bit much that pretty much all of warriors for example will be using the same first 5 skills.


A: Well on top of it actually feeling pretty different because the skills combine in a multitude of ways that make different strategies viable for each weapon, we also have a trait system that modifies your character and will change how you play. On top of that most professions have 2 weapon sets so you don't just pick a weapon, you pick 2 sets which creates a lot more options for wacky combos.


Q: Will the Mesmer's portal skill have a long cooldown(to cast the portal), because I can imagine that people will spam that ability if they have a short cool down.


A: Yup. :)


Q: Hey! Engineer lover here! You told us some time ago the misterious Tool Kit was, strangely enough, focused on Turret support. An utility skill designed to be just a support of other utility skills? :O Any insight on the Tool Kit skill? Thanks in advance!


A: Tool Kit has actually morphed a few times. I don't want to spoil everything but its one of my favorites right now. :)


Q: In the recent Mesmer skill video it appeared a ranger used the skill, Rapid Fire, (previously a longbow skill) with a short bow. Is this official? Any news on the replacement longbow skill if so?


A: No it was a longbow, you can just move while using longbow now, cause its more "FUN"


Q: Could you tell us what the Guardian's other spirit weapons are and what they do?


A: How about this one?

Bow of Truth: Summon an arcane bow to remove conditions from you and your allies.

Activate it to summon a barrage of healing rain.



Q: What's your opinion on GW2 as an esport? I do remember when WoW made their stab at the esport market but ultimately failed because non-players had no chance at following the action. One of the great things about Starcraft 2 and the FPS games we currently see on more popular tournaments is that you can get a good feel for what's happening without any prior knowledge. What will GW2 do to address this?


A: Can't give details yet, but we definitely plan to support GW2 as an Esport! :)

-Chap


Q: Will leveling through PVP be just as fast and rewarding as leveling through quests and instances?


A: To clarify you can only level in WvW and not competitive PvP. Our aim is that it is just as fast and rewarding while levelling by doing WvW, dungeons, personal story, or dungeons. We want people to be able to play the type of content they want to play and not be forced into having to play a certain way because its vastly more efficient than any other way.


Q: How seriously are you taking PvP as a legit form of competitive play. IE: Is it e-sports material?


A: We take our competitive PvP very seriously and are designing it to be very e-sport friendly.


Q: Are people using ranged weapons still horribly screwed over by bridges? That's probably my least favorite thing about GW1, because it just doesn't make sense, even on a 'how is this implemented' level.


A: No problems for ranged weapon users firing off of bridges at all. Guild Wars 1 wasn't a true 3D engine. Guild Wars 2 is.


Q: What sort of tools do you use for balancing classes? Is it entirely guess and check based on player results, or do you do any sort of mathematical optimization?


A: A lot of it is Excel, and just organizing your data in a way so you can parse it. We like to approach balance from a few different angles, we use math to find some issues, play balance for some, play test feedback, gut feeling on other, data analysis. Pretty much anything and everything we can use we use. We found any single approach has it's strengths and weakness so we like to make sure we use multiple. ~Izzy


Q: Hey there.

So, me and my friends are going to buy GW2 when it comes out, no question. I've been reading up and, since this'll be my first time playing GW2, I've been wondering whether I should pick Elementalist or Ranger. I like classes with some sense of survivability, but mostly hardcore long range damage, and both look pretty great in that regard. We'll all probably be playing humans.

What would you suggest?


A: Personally I would pick the ranger but that has more to do with me liking that archetype than any actual effectiveness. To be honest you can build almost any profession for ranged damage and survivability, a warrior who specializes in longbow and rifle for example has very good ranged damage along with the armor and high health that being a warrior brings. A mesmer with a staff on the other hand is survivable but relies on kiting, applying conditions, and using illusions for deception. My advice is to try several professions and see which style you find the most fun.


Q: Finally off work and was able to read the back log of answers, thanks a bunch for this!

I love the tidbit you dropped about someone's Support Thief handing out venom's. A support based stealth class could very well be my ideal build ever.

But I also just love the idea of a little tiny Asura Guardian. Not many questions about the Guardian being asked. Anything new/changed/relevant about guardian's? Or instead, any info on how the Asura racials work?


A: The guardian hasn't changed very much but here's a fun trait that might fit the style you seem to like. Guardians can equip a trait that creates a small aoe heal at the location they dodge to. This makes for an interesting style of play where the guardian relies on being nimble and dodging strategically to support their allies.


Q: Quick question: Does the Engineer shield skill 'absorb' work on any type of projectile including arrows, or will it only work on magic type projectiles like fireball? Edit: Thank you for the clarification. While it would be pretty awesome to absorb a treb shot, it is still a pretty entertaining skill as is. The stronger the enemy attack (within reason) the stronger you are.


A: it works on any projectile that isn't set to unblockable. So if we don't want an engineer absorbing something like say a treb shot we set it to unblockable. ~Izzy


Q: Hai Mr Jon, I wish to seek knowledge on that of the class of the engineer. What role do you see this person playing more often, support? dmg? anti-support? defensive? Passive-Aggressive? I appreciate!


A: Like all professions he can do all 3 rolls. I've seen him do support with Elixirs very well, he does damage with either rifle builds or turret builds. And his tank and defensive builds are often a mixture of gadgets and elixirs . One of our fav is dropping an Elixir R (which resurrects nearby allies) on yourself right before you go down which effectively self reses you. This however takes careful timing, and if you fightning against it when you see it you either wait or knock them out of it before finishing them off. ~Izzy


Q: Can we get an example or two of how the Mesmer's healing spells looks like?


A: One of his heals is Mirror which heals him and reflects projectiles for a short period of time.


Q: Will I be frowned upon if I only heal and support in dungeons? I love healing in other MMORPGs, staying at the back and make sure people are safe.


A: You can play that role if you like it's just we're designing things so it's not required. It is however not possible to be just a healer you can build your character to be more supporty and have more powerful heals the other professions it's just with only a few of your skills being heals as a support character you have to focus on other things like setting up cross profession combos buffing allies, or protect allies.


Q: Will the engineer have anything like a jetpack skill (allowing 3D movement with your other skills for a short time) or backpack kit (with its own skills) possibly as an elite with Gatling guns on it?

Edit: As a follow up questions what are some other weapon and/or backpack kits we might see for the engineer?


A: The engineer does not have a jetpack he does how ever have rocket boots that blast him backwards an insanely far distance. He can also use Jump Shot with the rifle and jump up on ledges.


Q: How long does the mesmer portal skill last? What's the distance that you can place them appart and how does the player know that he is to far to place the other end?

Say in the Battle of Kyhlo map I place the first portal in the clocktower capture point, then would it be possible to run to the windmill, capture it, place the other end, then teleport back to the clocktower?

PS: We met at Gamescom and I just want to thank you for the compliment on me playing the Warrior. You can't believe how good it feels to hear that from a designer!


A: We're still working on the distances and timing for it but we have a number of limiting factors on it currently you cannot place an exit farther then a radar and after the exit is placed it will expire after 20 seconds. We've found a number of crazy uses for it all ready one we used today was Chap dropped a portal while I was taking a the Mansion point and then placed a portal inside the clock tower so right as I finished capping the point I could jump through the portal and help him in the fight. ~Izzy


Q: Hey, thanks for taking the time to answer so many of our questions! :) Recently, in one of the G-Star videos, it appeared as if a Guardian used a new elite- one that seemed to emanate a massive blue aura, with the Guardian then able to send out multiple blue flames. Could you perhaps name and detail this ability, elite or not?


A: This elite is called Tomb of Wrath, it locks the Guardian in place for it's duration and gives them access to 5 new skills. One of those skills is called Judgement which knocks down all targets for 5s. (Which is the big blue light). The other skills are. Conflagrate: AoE Burn. Affliction: A projectile that cripples and weakness foes and bounces 10 times. Smiter's Boon: A swiftness and Might buff for all nearby allies. Zealot's Fervor: Grants frenzy to all nearby allies.


Q: What class is easiest to play. I was born with hands that don't work right so I can't key bind alot of buttuons so I was just wondering.


A: I think most of the professions can be simple or complex based on how you spec them some are a little more complex out of the box like Elementalist or Mesmer but it really depends on your weapon choice and build.


Q: How long will Dynamic Events affect an area after completion? Forever? Cant wait for open beta!

<3


A: All depends on the event, if the Dredge set up a fort in an area and start sending out raiding parties and there is an event to take that fort down. They will keep sending out raiding parties harassing everyone until that fort is defeated, after it's defeated it might be a bit before the Dredge muster up enough forces to send out some workers to build another one which you can stop.


Q: To Izzy:

One of the best things about competitive GW1 PvP was that a perfectly united team was always the most successful. If you had a team that could (for example) spike perfectly, and would operate as a big, organized unit, you'd never lose to a less organized team. The biggest "imbalance" of HA was IWAY, where people complained the game became less fun when the dominate play-style did not require ventrilo or coordinated organization.

With conquest, do we have to abandon this united organization we love? Why does conquest constantly try to discourage operating as a unit, and encourage splitting up and acting as individuals?



A: We still find this to be true, an organized team still spikes coordiantes collapses, pushes the enemy objectives, reacts to the enemies tactics and movements as a group. (Chap they just killed out treb I'll grab the repair part you clear the center path for me, John C resses in 20 secs let make sure it's up in time) or (Chap Rampage is up in 20 seconds meet me in middle for a big push, John C we need treb fire in the middle asap).

Capture point just represent territory you care about and control so it creates things to fight over. Coordination and team work at the highest level is still beyond important. ~Izzy


Q: Hey, thanks for taking the time to answer so many of our questions! :) Recently, in one of the G-Star videos, it appeared as if a Guardian used a new elite- one that seemed to emanate a massive blue aura, with the Guardian then able to send out multiple blue flames. Could you perhaps name and detail this ability, elite or not?



A: This elite is called Tome of Wrath, it locks the Guardian in place for it's duration and gives them access to 5 new skills. One of those skills is called Judgement which knocks down all targets for 5s. (Which is the big blue light). The other skills are. Conflagrate: AoE Burn. Affliction: A projectile that cripples and weakness foes and bounces 10 times. Smiter's Boon: A swiftness and Might buff for all nearby allies. Zealot's Fervor: Grants frenzy to all nearby allies.


Q: Would you say Mesmer is a more luck-dependent class than the other classes, since it seems to rely more on chance, or is that assumption wrong?


A: The Staff Mesmer has a bit more of that, but I wouldn't say the mesmer as a whole is. Even skills with random condition like chaos storm really end up playing like bad stuff happens here.


Q: Hello Izzy, thanks for being so awesome and answering questions this late! I've got a question about ranger pets: is it possible to slot all 2 pets that can be swapped out in combat with the same skin? Say that I really love the snow leopard and want to use only it for most fights. I'm not sure that this is how I'll play my ranger, I LOVE the options of different kinds of pets, but I know some people really want to keep a specific pet they love. Thanks! Sorry if double post, I'm a reddit noob


A: Yes you can have two of the same pet if you like ~Izzy

(not sure which one is correct, though I'm going to guess Jon's is seeing as he's lead systems designer)

A: Sorry, you must have two different species in there. - Jon


Q: It was mentioned here that players can now move while using the Longbow.

Do you think one of you could elaborate briefly on the differences between playstyles of the Longbow and the Shortbow now? I had understood it to be, before hand, slow and powerful vs mobile and slightly less powerful purely damage-wise.


A: The longbow still wants to be at range we made the weapon do more damage the farther it is away, while the shortbow does damage and effects based on flanking (being to the side or behind a target). The shortbow also has a spread shot skill which can hit up to 5 times if shot at point blank allowing you to do a lot of damage up close. So the longbow tends to try and stay back to maximize damage while shortbow bounces back and forth between ranges to maximize damage. ~Izzy


Q: It was mentioned here that players can now move while using the Longbow.

Do you think one of you could elaborate briefly on the differences between playstyles of the Longbow and the Shortbow now? I had understood it to be, before hand, slow and powerful vs mobile and slightly less powerful purely damage-wise.



A: Great question. Longbow is the long range heavy hitting weapon. Short bow is more about flanking and movement. Basically at one point in development we realized, oh wow it more fun to move and shoot, let's just balance around that and only stop you from moving when it really makes sense. - Jon


Q: One of the things that attracted me to Elementalist was the fact that they can spawn weapons for allies to use. Are these weapons going to be useful at every level of the game or just low-mid level? Like would someone really want to pick this Ice bow up if they have a level 80 1?


A: These weapon are useful at all levels, there skills and abilities scale with level. ~Izzy


Q: One of the things that attracted me to Elementalist was the fact that they can spawn weapons for allies to use. Are these weapons going to be useful at every level of the game or just low-mid level? Like would someone really want to pick this Ice bow up if they have a level 80 1?


A: They are always useful. They scale to your level and give you a unique set of skills you can use to compliment your and your allies builds.


Q: It was mentioned here that players can now move while using the Longbow.

Do you think one of you could elaborate briefly on the differences between playstyles of the Longbow and the Shortbow now? I had understood it to be, before hand, slow and powerful vs mobile and slightly less powerful purely damage-wise.


A: The longbow still wants to be at range we made the weapon do more damage the farther it is away, while the shortbow does damage and effects based on flanking (being to the side or behind a target). The shortbow also has a spread shot skill which can hit up to 5 times if shot at point blank allowing you to do a lot of damage up close. So the longbow tends to try and stay back to maximize damage while shortbow bounces back and forth between ranges to maximize damage. ~Izzy



Q: Do the Asuran racial skill created golem battlesuits have a usage timer, or do they last until they take too much damage?


A: We have tried both of these and other methods of limiting them. Not sure which one we really like yet. The great news is our system is flexible and easy to iterate on so stuff like this changes daily as we work towards nailing things down. <- gratuitous example of how we specifically iterate since we talk about iteration so much! :)


Q: Have you ever thought about using unique models for phantasms? Seems they aren't meant to be deceptive like clones, so you could make them look pretty vicious if you wanted to.


A: yeah we started out that way, but it ended up being more confusing as it a lot of noisier to combat and made us have to find very different profiles for each creature, when we changed them to being "Duelist, and Mages" we could easily give them weapons and skills that would make what they are doing more clear when it was creatures we where a lot more limited on what each thing could do.


Q: What mesmer elite skills do you have so far?


A: We have an Elite that turns your target into a Moa bird for a short period of time giving them Moa skills like Peck, kick, Screech.


Q: Can opposing engineer's mines be destroyed, or could one team assault someones treb, destroy it, place all five mines next to it and then blow them up as soon as the treb was repaired inflicting a good chunk of damage if not outright destroying it? By the way, I have never been more excited for a game than I am for GW2. Thank you. Edit: Excellent.


A: you cannot destroy an engineers mines, and yes that tactic does work. You can also run up to an enemy treb drop a thumper turret, rifle turret and run away laughing as your turret cause havok. (Shakes fist at Tyler our QA tester and most feared engineer) ~Izzy


Q: Recently it was said in the iteration process that cross-profession combos were modified so that one "starter" can only be paired up with one "finisher" saying that it was too powerful otherwise.

Are you sure that's a good idea? Shouldn't the only way to counter a team with a 3person+ organized combo be to counter with their own organized combo? (I don't really understand how it's any different than free-for-all otherwise).

Because AoE exists, attackers are at risk of taking exponentially more damage by balling-up to initiate the combo. Are you sure you took this fact that multi-man combos will be countered by AoE into consideration when you decided to nerf 3 person+combos?


A: this is more on a per combo bases like you can't shoot a projectile through a firewall and a lightning field and get both effects or you cannot stomp in both a firewall and a smoke screen and get both a fireblast and a cloak. It will pick the one that is closest to the triggering effect. Some professions are better at making things to combo with (Ele) and some professions are better at coming with things other professions make (War). ~Izzy


A: What it means is that if you shoot an arrow through a firewall, poison cloud and chaos storm it takes on the properties of the last thing it goes through. Games have to have rules and this is a rule we decided on to make it easier to balance and easier to display the effect you were getting out of the combo. Rules and changes of rules don't really effect how high the player skill level is in the game, they just are there to make things less confusing so that anyone can partake. guild wars 2 PvP and PvE has enough build making, strategy, and complexity to keep anyone busy for a long long time, this time around it's just more layered so we can explain it in a less overwhelming way. This is one of the fundamental rules of game design, in my opinion, so that explains why we make a lot of the decisions that we do.


Q: When you shatter an illusion, do all the illusions get shattered? Or can you choose which one to shatter? And is there a cool down for shattering?


A: Yes all illusions get shattered, and yes there is a cool down on each one. ~Izzy


Q: When you shatter an illusion, do all the illusions get shattered? Or can you choose which one to shatter? And is there a cool down for shattering?


A: All get shattered, of the at most 3 you can have out. There are 4 shatter skills, one does damage, one applies confusion, one stuns, one protects the caster, each one has their own separate cooldown.

As a follow up if you summon an illusion and you already have 3 out the oldest one goes away. we call this dissolving, at least internally.


Q: is there a necromancer elite skill similar to guild wars 1's Animate Flesh Golem?


A: Yes in fact we have an elite called Animate Flesh golem, that summons a large flesh golem who is very mean. You summon toggles to a skill called charge which sends your golem charging after your target knocking any foes in his way back. ~Izzy


Q: One thing that I still don't completely understand is how threat will work in PvE situations. Is it just based on whoever is doing the most damage at any given time or are there skills associated with threat? Is it a profession thing?

Along the same lines...if there is no dedicated healer, who keeps the group alive? How?


A: Threat is largely positional based, creatures like to attack things closer to them. Some creatures have different behavior and will attack things at random these creatures are scarier kill them first. (There are a lot of other factors but positioning is one of the most prominent)

As for healing when everyone call heal and res the answer to who is keeping you alive, is everyone if your health is getting low you pull back and heal up. If a ranged monster is raining ranged death on your party you use reflection skills, or keep the monster shut down, or everyone spikes that guy down. ~Izzy


Q: One thing that I still don't completely understand is how threat will work in PvE situations. Is it just based on whoever is doing the most damage at any given time or are there skills associated with threat? Is it a profession thing?

Along the same lines...if there is no dedicated healer, who keeps the group alive? How?


A: There is no skill based threat. It is based on a variety of factors, one of which is proximity. The group works together to keep itself alive. If you draw aggro use your heal, dodge, use defensive skills, try and lose aggro if you have used up that stuff. If you can't get an ally to use a cc skill on the enemy or a support skill that might help you, for example:

Debuff the enemy with weakness so you take less damage.

Cast an aoe heal near you.

Apply a protection, aegis, or other boon to you.

Blind the enemy.

This gameplay is just a more team oriented, and fluid version of combat that requires more interaction and less dependency.



Q: I like to play classes that can just dish out big damage. Which profession would you recommend I try first?


A: Axe warrior, use Signet of Might. Use the activation while leaping through the air with your F1 skill eviscerate. Very fun very big numbers. ~Izzy


Q: Hello there.

About WvWvW - is there anything to do in those areas other than hunting enemies? Something to keep them populated? Also, when you say "you're maxed out for PvP", it means you get all skills/spells (since there's no longer "skill hunting" in GW2, right)?

Other than that, gosh, don't you guys sleep? Game shows, attention to the community and making such a huge and complex game... Kudos! :)


A: In WvW we have a number of things to do, we have a large number of objects from large scale sieges to small objects you can harass. Along with this our focus is to allow players to kill monsters and do events here so if players want to say in WvW hunting players and leveling up they can.

Sleep is for the weak. :P ~Izzy



Q: How is the play style as a greatsword mesmer?


A: Lots of distance separation. It's subject to change but to give you and idea.

Skill 1: channeled beam that does more damage the further away a target is. Skill 2: roll backwards summoning a Greatsword wielding clone that uses skill 1.

There is also a summon on there tht is a phantasm which cripples enemies to keep them away from you.



Q: Can prepared Mesmer mantras be used anytime? Even during a roll? Or under interrupt conditions?


A: The instant activate part can be used anytime, rolling, casting, falling from a ledge. :)


Q: Is there a limit to turrets? For example, could a group of 5 engineers place 5 rifle turrets down near the same spot in a dungeon or in PVP? Thanks


A: there is no limit other then the number of turrets one character can bring, but turrets downside is they can't move so in PvP you would just avoid that point, treb them or use aoe/reflection skills. In PvE respawn timers make this only so effective but might be a fun way to beat a dungeon boss or two. : ) ~Izzy


Q: Can prepared Mesmer mantras be used anytime? Even during a roll? Or under interrupt conditions?


A: They can be used anytime even while rolling or any other action and they do not interrupt your current action. ~Izzy


Q: Is there a limit to turrets? For example, could a group of 5 engineers place 5 rifle turrets down near the same spot in a dungeon or in PVP? Thanks


A: The only limit is one type of each turret per person. ultimately to place a turret you have given up some other utility skill. That is how they are balanced. It's one reason Gw2 skills don't need big drawbacks. A much more fun drawback to turret is that you didn't bring flamethrower, not that you can't have a turret near someone elses turret.


Q: How do greatsword rangers play in structured Pvp? is this a more PvE oriented weapon or is it mobile enough to be useful for PvP? I think the skills are very awesome for general damage, but I'm not sure how they play in a more structured environment. Thanks :D


A: It's one of the most popular ranger pvp weapons right now because it is so versatile. It has mobility, defense and CC, as well as some condition damage.


Q: During the "Veil" skill video, has the last projectile attack the Mesmer uses on the giant any other effect than damaging the enemy?

How many weapon sets does the Mesmer have available during combat?



A: 2 sets.

That particular skill is a basic scepter attack so it's just damage. It is part of a fancy combo, but I wont spoil how it works...



Q: how diverse are the functions of the conjures for the Mesmer? are they all damage (prior to the 4 shatter effects)?

The more you comment the more I can see the conjure as a 3d representation of the hexes from GW1, and the shatter as the removal effect. It is a very interesting twist.


A: Clones are copies of your character they use a weakened version of your 1 skill making it hard to tell you appart.

Phantasms do different things depending on which ones like Duelist(one in the video) is all about raw damage, granted he triggers cross profession combos which is awesome. Others might stand in place whirling around reflecting projectiles becoming a burden for the enemy, or another is named backfire and attack the enemy with big damage anytime they use an attack.


Q: How complex can the dynamic events get? Can two separate events influence each other causing them to merge into one event? Can an event branch off into multiple events? Are there any crazy super rare events that requires a bunch of different events conditions to be satisfied?


A: Everything you listed is possible in the system we have. I haven't worked directly on events in a few years so I can't say if we do them all or not. One thing is this complex stuff is more fun for designers than for players. The important things for players we have found is that events have consequences, don't repeat often, and are fun. Those other interactions are more under the hood and help set the tone for an area, but you rarely notice them in the throws of adventuring.


Q: Fast one - do you guys worry about 1v1 balance when, well, balancing the game? Or just group balance around the 5v5 format for organized PvP?

(also, please tell me wich class dominates 1v1 so I can roam WvWvW alone late in the night feeling like a predator) XD



A: Every profession gets balanced in a variety of environments, and they all have the ability to do well in 1v1. That being said, I thought I would ganking with warrior or thief in our world v world tests, but I've found myself using my Mesmer for that stuff the last few times. That could just be because he is my new shiny character though...


Q: Glad to see the mesmer is back, very much my favorite class and under appreciated, how will/have the domination skills carried over?


A: We still have a lot of control elements, Daze (which is like blackout), Stuns, illusions that shut down you like Backfire. So I think it's still around just a little different. ~Izzy


Q: Will certain races be more viable for certain classes? For example, i will be playing a warrior, and i love the look of the sylvari. Is that combination of class/race just as viable as a charr warrior as such? (for PVP mainly, i am a big PVP junkie)


A: In competitive PvP there are no race skills, it will be a careful balance in other formats but the goal is that all races with all professions are equally viable. ~Izzy


Q: Have there been any significant changes to the Ranger axe skills, such as Path of Scars? Does the Axe and the Shortbow still share a nearly identical skill (Poison Spray/Splitblade)?


A: There has been no major changes to axe and shortbow, but we have been looking at conditions and ways to make bleeding and poison more different from each other. we're still experimenting with some ideas but we think at a core level we need to make sure burning, bleeding, and poison feel and play different otherwise skills that apply them will feel similar. ~Izzy


Q: In regards to Dynamic events, What stops a group of players always winning the event (ie: defending a town) and never being able to experience past the first part of the event chain?

I realise the point is to keep the town or place safe but I'd love to be able to experience the whole chain!

btw - I really admire your commitment to quality. It's so rare and very admirable :)



A: This is one of the more tricky things about event design we careful make sure each event is designed in way that the failure of the event is not more exciting then the success. For example if a Krait witch summons something big bad an evil if you don't do x you might just sit around and let her do bad things just so you can see the event. So we're really careful to make sure all players goals align with each other.

We also expect our content to be different when you play it again it's why going and helping a buddy play in a map or playing another character is a lot more fun because it may be something you haven't seen before. So we really try and layer a lot of different style of events pacing and difficulty. ~Izzy



Q: Are skills that use multiple projectiles treated as one attack or multiple attacks?

For example, if a Thief's Unload passes through a Mesmer's Chaos Storm, does it get one chance at a random condition, or does each projectile get a chance?

Then expanding on that, does an Engineers Shield absorb the entire Unload, or does it just absorb one/two/whatever number of projectiles?



A: they are multiple attacks.

So an unload through a Chaos Storm would augment each projectile and an Engineer shield would only block the first shot of unload. ~Izzy



Q: Last one from me. Are enemies able to see as they are being cast or in effect: Veils? Crippling Lines? Teleportals?


A: Veil stealths all allies every 3 seconds, if an ally attacks an enemy they will become unstealthed until veil pulses again.


Q: Can multiple Mesmers chain portals? First Mesmer lay down an entrence and an exit, second Mesmer lay down an entrence on top of the first exit...etc. When I step through the first portal, will I get chained teleported to the last exit?


A: Yes - I do believe they can. it would be a bit tricky to get them all to line up and timed right, but might be very amusing. ~Izzy


Q: Are invinci-builds (like a 55/105 monk, 330 Ele or Rt, etc...) going to be part of GW2?


A: Peeking in for one more before I actually go to bed. This one struck a chord because it's so weighted, or can be interpreted in so many ways.

If you mean will I be able to make builds that are good at farming or a particular activity, then yes some builds excel at some things in the game.

If you mean will I be able to make builds as intricate as that, I think again the answer is yes. I'm currently doing PvP with a warrior who does an aoe heal on shout (yeah thats a current trait) and uses mace/sword weapons to stay alive while I support.

If you mean will I be able to make totally broken builds that ruin balance, economy and the meta game, I don't think you will, but if people do well address them as best we can.


Q: Ok, this is off topic, but relevant for a few million people.

What makes your game fundamentally different from world of Warcraft, and other games that try to do the exact same thing, but better? (i.e. Swtor, Rift, etc).

Irrelevant background info on the reason for the question: I've been playing MMORPG's for a long time with my group of friends (we started with runescape 8 years ago), but we've gotten bored of playing games that do pretty much the same thing (bind your hotkeys to QWER1234, then assemble a group of DPS/Tank/healer in some combination).

Now-days it feels like I'm just playing the same game every time I try out a new MMO, because there isn't a whole lot of innovation in the genre.

My last hope for the next year or three is GW2, as from what I've seen of your features/development videos and articles if solves a lot of my pet peeves in MMO's, but I'm still really curious as to what YOU think makes your game stand out.



A: I'll bite on this one. This is my personal reason, but I think it is worth repeating.

The MMO is the ultimate cooperative game. The genre and the games in it thrive on community and social interaction. There are a lot of MMOs and a lot of social games out there, but rarely does the entirety of the game focus on this most important element. This is what Guild Wars 2 is really about. Creating a space that in every way encourages social interactions of one kind or another. Dynamic events means never competing for content. The rewards systems mean never competing for mobs and resources. Within a single event, players are never competing for rewards. In combat people are reviving each other, working together with cross profession combos, stacking their buffs and debuffs, assisting allies regardless of grouping. when grouping they are finding the players they want to socially interact with, not the ones with the right professions to complete some formulaic combat requirements. Every system, announced, and unannounced comes back to this principal and that is why it works and what drives development of the game. It is as simple and as complicated as that; we believe people choose to play an online game to play it together, not to play alongside each other.

There are so many more good questions, but I feel like this is the answer I want to end on. Thanks again for the questions and for making this a success for us.
Jon



Q: Two on-topic questions for you now

What is your favorite mechanic currently implemented?

How do you go about trying to make sure that 'skill' is going to be a factor in player versus player combat when designing skills for professions?

I.e How do you make sure that knowledge of the game, planning, and intelligent play will make a difference?


A: Fav mechanic: I think weapon swapping, it really changes up how your character plays allowing you to make for some fun combos.

it's all about making sure there is depth in the combat be it in positioning, actions, timing, counter play it's making sure each profession has a nice mixture of depth and when a skilled player sits down and plays the profession they are better then someone who does not. Then you just have to balance how much better and what types of actions they are doing the more fun the actions are the more enjoyable combat is.

I think knowledge of the game comes from depth

~Izzy


Q: Is it viable to play a warrior with a rifle in mind as his main weapon?


A: Very viable his aimed shot is a HUGE amount of damage and does more damage the lower in health your target is so it's perfect for finishing people off. ~Izzy


Q: Thank you for making great games Arena Net!

As someone who couldn't really get into PvP in Guild Wars 1 in the sequel do you think it will be much more accessible to players?

I ask this because in Guild Wars 1 alot of PvP was setting up specific skill sets that countered other specific sets/strategies and it wasn't very fun. You usually ended up doing pretty bad versus most other players using "refined" skill bars with complimenting runes etc. I guess what I'm asking is will GW2 feature more tactics[during combat] instead of raw strategy?



A: I think there is still a nice mixture of Tactics vs Strategy, but making it easier for people to get into is a very big goal of ours PvP is really only fun if you have a lot of people to play with.


Q: I'd just like to thank you guys deeply for taking the time to answer our questions. I understand you've got a lot of work to do, and it really means a lot. Thanks so much.

A question concerning how DoT effects stack - we've noticed at gw2guru that certain bleeds/poisons are more potent than others - for instance, blood is power creates a more potent bleed effect than reaper's mark.

However, bleeds stack together. Does the game simply stack the icons of bleeds and manage the damage amounts separately? Or do bleeds get beefed up or dumbed down depending on what "base bleed/poison amount" they're building off of?

Sorry if that came out as a bit confusing. Either way, thanks for everything. We get these little information vacuums after the conventions and today was just a real treat for all of us. Keep doing what you're doing, you've renewed my faith in the MMO industry.



A: So conditions that deal damage have a base damage that scales with your level and then some bonus damage from your stats. Stacks will stack up to our max stack size and then will be removed based on the shortest duration and weakest intensity but sense duration is the main determining factor it mainly just removes the shortest duration first. This really doesn't come into play all that much as if you have 25 stacks of something in our game your going to die pretty fast but it can come into play with the large boss monsters ~Izzy


Q: Are there in WvW still some mobs and events which dont need enemy player contact? so maybe you can fight some oakhearts when some badass engineers coming around and you have to deside?


A: Yes there are normal mobs in WvW ~Izzy


Q: The f1-f4 "shatter" mesmer skills are all on separate cooldowns, correct?


A: yes they all have separate cool downs -Izzy